Note 169 — Chapter XVIII · DEAD SEA FRUIT

A quaint episode marked the campaign. After storming—and plundering—a Kurdish village, some exultant mountain warriors came to their C.O. to announce that they had secured the most valuable loot they could hope to win. They presented to the amused officer an enormous MS. tome of Church services! It was a copy of their “Khudra”—i.e., the collection of the variable parts of the offices on all Sundays and ferials of the “circle” (khudra) of the year, an enormously enlarged equivalent to the Collects and occasional prayers of the Book of Common Prayer. They begged for a mule from the transport train to carry this sacred trophy at the head of the column on the march, and it gives some idea of the size of the book when we say that the mule was actually necessary to carry it, though, as the companion volume of the “Gezza” (Treasury, containing the prayers for saints’ days) was not there, it was not more than half a load for the beast. For the rest of the campaign the book was the palladium and standard of the corps, and was given a voluntary guard of honour every night. Subsequently, it was presented to the Patriarch, and is now in use in his church.